


An Empty Room

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4365332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan returns to Shepard's apartment for the first time since the end of the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Empty Room

It was quiet.

That was all Kaidan could think as he entered the apartment. There was noise, since the Silversun Strip was still undergoing all the repairs needed from the fighting of C-Sec and the civilian militia against the Reaper forces. Ironically, the only place at the moment that was completely repaired and back in business was the sushi bar.

But Shepard’s apartment was still quiet.

There wasn’t any particular reason it should be that quiet. It was, after all, unchanged. Indeed, the Tiberius Towers had been relatively undamaged during the fighting – with the views it offered, it made for lousy cover for anyone in combat, particularly given the unsettling tendency husks had of climbing up and into any building they came across. While much of the rest of the Strip had been shot up, the Towers had had only minor superficial damage.

The quiet came from what wasn’t there.

Kaidan was no stranger to Shepard’s apartment, after all. During the pit stops at the Citadel the Normandy had made after Shepard had been given the apartment, he’d spent a lot of his leave time here. And Shepard hadn’t been much for staying still. Even when he read, he’d had to move around, shuffling between rooms and couches and chairs. He’d liked the collection of bound books that Admiral Anderson had left, and Kaidan could occasionally hear the shuffling of pages. Shepard had also enjoyed having the music on. He’d said he couldn’t think in the quiet. Shepard puttered, though he hated when Kaidan called it that.

That absence was why it was quiet. Because Shepard wasn’t here.

Shepard wasn’t going to be here again. 

Having the Reapers gone was a blessing, to be sure. Everyone had known that the war would have its costs. On multiple occasions, Shepard and Kaidan had spoken about how they had low expectations of surviving. Despite those talks, though, Kaidan had always had the thought that they’d make it through, that he and Shepard could build a life together, instead of having just the time that they’d carved out together.

Over by the bar, the picture Glyph had taken at the party was still active. Kaidan looked to the image of Shepard, in the picture the both of them looking at one another, as if the others weren’t assembled around them. As if they were the only one in the room. 

He smiled slightly, glad that they’d been able to have any time together. They’d made those moments count. He figured that Shepard had believed he wouldn’t be coming back, and wanted to put all the time he could into what they had. Kaidan was grateful for that at least. That while they’d had such little time together, they’d been able to make the most of it. 

But Kaidan still wished there had been the chance for more time. Not just because they’d missed so much, but because it would mean that Shepard was still there, still with him.

Aside from Shepard’s mother, Kaidan was considered Shepard’s next of kin, or the closest to. They hadn’t had a chance for anything official to be written down in any records, but records in general were in a state of disarray at the moment anyway. Shepard and Kaidan’s relationship had been no secret to anyone, especially not here at the Towers. As far as they were concerned, Shepard’s apartment was now Kaidan’s. 

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

_How do you think you should feel about it, LT?_ That voice in his head sounded an awful lot like Ashley Williams.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “It’s something to remember him by.”

_Sure, but that’s not how you feel._ She never was much for beating around the bush. 

“I’m not sure. He’s gone, Ash. How should I feel? The man I loved is dead. I feel like... like...”

_Like you should have been with him._

Kaidan was quiet. 

_You know that’s bull, right? You being there would only have meant that the both of you would have died. And I swear if your response to that is that at least you would have died together, I’m gonna hit you with something._

She had a point. Being with Shepard would have just resulted in both of them dying. He knew it. It didn’t make anything better, though. He had only just managed to be with Shepard, just gotten him back from the distance that had overtaken them in the time since the Collector attack that had destroyed the original Normandy. There’d been so little time, and now there wouldn’t be more.

_It’s not wrong to mourn, Kaidan._ Now that voice in his head sounded like his father. _You loved the man, you certainly deserved more than a few months with him._ Kaidan didn’t need to know his father as well as he did to hear the coming ‘but.’ _But we don’t always get what we deserve._

“Don’t I know it...” Kaidan muttered. He shook his head. “That doesn’t make it better.”

_I can’t do that, son. You need to scream, to cry, to let it out, you do that. But you also know what he gave his life for. So you could live. He expected you to go on. Would you let him down like that?_

He didn’t want to. But it was difficult to bring himself to want to do anything else. Sure, there was throwing himself into reconstruction efforts and make himself forget everything, but that would only delay things. The galaxy would eventually rebuild. And then where would Kaidan be? Still in this apartment, holding on to memories, staring at a picture on the wall? 

It wasn’t life, but Kaidan didn’t think he was ready to return to life.

_You think I was ready to leave you behind? Again?_

Kaidan had been half waiting and half dreading the moment the voice in his head spoke in Shepard’s comforting tones. He wanted to hear Shepard speaking to him again. But the voice in his head had always been the voice of the dead. To hear Shepard’s voice was to admit he was gone, and not coming back.

“Of course not. But... We should have had more time.”

_That we did. It wasn’t fair. Not to either of us. I would give anything to have given us more._

“But you can’t.” Kaidan was surprised how easily those words came out of his mouth. He was sitting here, wanting to change the way things had been, and yet... He was telling himself that he couldn’t change things.

_I can’t. I’m no god, Kaidan._

“I never thought you were.” The galaxy may deify Shepard, but to Kaidan, he was just a man. The man he’d loved. He would remember the man.

_You know that I will always love you, Kaidan. In life and in death. And you can do the same. Just... Make sure you go out there and_ LIVE.

Kaidan closed his eyes. “I love you, John.”

He took a breath, and, when he opened his eyes, he saw what he had before – an empty room. But now, even the ghosts that had lingered were gone. He looked to the picture on the wall. His heart still ached as he looked at Shepard, at his gentle smile. But he also knew that it was just a picture. 

He took another look out the window. There was a lot of work to do yet to get the Citadel fixed up. As much as sitting in the lap of luxury appealed to him, there was surely something more productive he could do than stay here. He needed to get back out there, help put the galaxy back together.

Shepard had left a legacy to the galaxy. Kaidan needed to get out there and do what he could to help it be the right one. 

His apartment would still be here later.


End file.
